Animal Instincts
by fourleggedfish
Summary: Kitteh!House gets into a fight and Wilson has to clean him up. Stuff of a questionable nature ensues. Genetically engineered species AU.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I am going to hell for this. Does this count as bestiality? IDEK. But I blame (erm - I mean *credit*, cough) hockypocky for making me write this. I mean, how could I not? She posted this absolutely hot adorable little practically porntastic picture at ht&tp&hocky pocky .livejournal&. com& 19139 . html and then expects me not to write a SMUTTY cute fic to go with it? (take out all of the spaces and & to get to the link) Please. Look at his tail! Stiff as a poker, isn't it; you know you noticed it too - don't lie. Anywho...I'm not sure if I should be stupendously ashamed to have written this or not.

Anyway - this is dedicated to hockypocky for being a wonderfully imaginative artist who taunts me with provokative fantastically cute pictures of Wilson washing a nekkid!House's floppy ears and long, thick tail in the shower while House just sits there with his paws between his legs. My dear, you have corrupted me. :D Not that I'm complaining.

* * *

Wilson woke from his doze on the couch and glanced around in a muzzy haze of sleep-clouded thoughts. He had no idea what woke him, but the fact that House still hadn't turned up worried him. House was a creature of habit; he always appeared within an hour of Wilson's arrival home, no matter how early or late, as if he had the building staked out at all hours of the day. Wilson would putter around until he heard the light scratching at the door, and there House would sit on his mat. Milk and tuna and all sorts of indulgences would follow, and then House would curl around him on the couch for a few hours, tangled in Wilson's legs or stretched out along his chest – whichever suited House. Once Wilson decided to call it a night, House would prowl around on Wilson's heels for the locking-up routine, and after Wilson finished his nightly bathroom rituals, he would step into the bedroom to find House hogging all of the blankets and getting fur all over Wilson's pillow. Of course, Wilson always complained about it and shoved House out of his way, sometimes out of bed altogether, but now that House wasn't here…

Wilson sighed and stretched, reaching over his head and arching his back just to hear his joints pop in satisfaction. He groaned and scratched his stomach, then rolled awkwardly onto his feet with a light snort to clear his sinuses. If it really bothered him, he could always go out and look for House, but he had no idea where the damn creature got to when he wasn't fuzzifying Wilson's apartment. The containment laws on the hybrid species didn't mandate their treatment, but they suggested keeping creatures like House indoors, as if they were pets. Wilson had never been comfortable with the notion of all but caging House like that. He was a cat-like animal, to be sure, but so much more than that, and much smarter as well. Confining him would feel too much like imprisoning a friend against his will. How sad was it that in all of the world, Wilson considered a hybrid cat to be his best friend? Well, House certainly had more in common physically with Wilson than with the full-blooded strays in the alleys, even if the strays were more interesting to House and House only used Wilson for meals and warm sleeping places.

Halfway to the kitchen, Wilson paused and cocked his head. He could have sworn…ah. There it was – the sound that had waken him. He would recognize the scrape of House's claws anywhere. "House!" Wilson turned and made his way across the apartment while talking. "Closed paw, House. I'm tired of paying the landlord to repaint the door every time you scratch it." Wilson turned the latch and pulled the door open, ready with a reproach over the late hour, but stopped at the sight that greeted him. "House! What… Have you been fighting? Never mind. Get inside."

House peered up at Wilson with a baleful expression, then slunk through the door that Wilson held open for him. No purr or mewl sounded in thanks for the hospitality; even for House, who acted entitled to Wilson's space and food, this wasn't the norm. Wilson followed House into the living room, but grabbed the scruff on his neck to stop him from going further. House tensed with a low growl, but Wilson knew that he didn't mean anything by it. If House wanted him to stop touching him, claws were the only warning he would offer.

"Don't even think about getting your grubby paws all over my sofa," Wilson said. "You're a mess."

House slouched down against the floor and twisted to loosen Wilson's hold on him.

Wilson would have none of that. "No. And you're bleeding. The only place you're going is the bathroom."

House flattened his ears and hissed at him; he knew that word. In fact, he knew a lot of words, and if he had been physiologically capable of forming human syllables, Wilson had no doubt that House would have been telling him off by now. Wilson had dragged him into the bathroom once before, the first time they had met actually. It had not been a pleasant experience for the much younger (and smaller) House, but necessary to remove all of the mud, not to mention the fleas. Wilson treated him monthly with Revolution flea drops now because House in the shower was not an experience he really wanted to repeat.

"Don't talk back to me," Wilson snapped. "You got yourself into this. Now come on." He tugged on his handful of scruff but House hunkered down and snarled at him. Wilson could hear his claws scrabble against the wooden floor, searching for purchase. Since full-grown House now weighed almost as much as Wilson did, Wilson decided that brute force would not really work. "Either you cooperate, or no tuna."

The low rumble of displeasure percolating in House's throat faded away, and House himself went still.

"And no bed, either," Wilson added. "If you want to look and smell like an animal, you can sleep outside and eat from dumpsters like an animal."

House's nose twitched, and then his tail began to swish back and forth in agitation. He was weighing his options.

Wilson fought the urge to grin in triumph. And the experts didn't think hybrids were intelligent beings. "Well?" Wilson demanded. "Which will it be? Animal, or House guest?"

House gave him a look as if to say that he knew what a pun was and disapproved of it.

Wilson merely quirked an eyebrow. "Cat got your tongue?"

The ears went flat again, and House looked positively murderous.

"You don't scare me," Wilson scoffed, even though he did. House possessed inch-long retractable claws, after all. "Come on," Wilson added, urging House toward the hallway with a sharp tug. "It won't kill you to be clean for once."

House licked his lips, then his knuckles, still plastered to the living room floor, and then he got a sly look on his face as he eyed Wilson poised above him. Slowly, House laved his tongue all over the backs of his paws and swiped them behind his ears. Wilson didn't let go, but his eyes widened because House…he looked almost…coquettish. Long swipes of his tongue, his eyes trained on Wilson, bright blue and intense and calculating, as if he knew and understood exactly what he was doing. Showing off. _Lascivious_. The sudden purring cinched it – House was actually trying to get out of a bath by _seducing _him.

Wilson gawped. "You shameless slut."

House purred harder and moved on to licking down his arm, but he averted his eyes now, prim and aloof, and yet still on display, back arching, body elongating just enough to draw Wilson's eyes to the sleekness of his limbs, to how slim and lithe his body was.

Wilson rolled his eyes. "I can't believe you. Do you actually think I'll let you out of a bath just because you're cute? Come on." He pulled at House's scruff more sharply this time. "You smell like alley cat, and you're filthy. You're getting washed."

House gave up on the seduction ploy and dug his claws into the floor boards with an angry hiss.

"Give it up," Wilson snapped. He hooked his arms under House's and hauled him partway off the floor, the better to drag him.

House fought and spit like the cat he was, claws out, hind legs scrabbling along the floor. Once they reached the hallway, he took to growling, and then he yowled outright when Wilson pretty much tossed him into the bathroom and closed the door to trap them both inside. House backed into the corner and hissed something fierce with the hair standing up all over his body, ears down and flicked back, tail sticking straight up in the air, knees up around his ears.

"It's a bath, House." Wilson deliberately put his back to him and leaned into the shower to turn on the water. "You're already wet from the rain. How much worse could this be?" He straightened up with his hands on his hips and regarded the furious cat balled up on the other side of the room with such a look in his eyes that anyone other than Wilson – who knew him – would have carefully and quickly escaped from the room. "At least the shower's warm."

House growled deep in his throat and glanced at the shower, then glared at Wilson again, tensed to defend himself.

It was times like these, Wilson mused, that he could well understand why some people advocated to end the hybrid breeding programs. House could be so human sometimes, so affectionate, but now, all Wilson saw was a large, cornered, pissed off wild animal waiting for his chance to rip Wilson apart. That brooding, understated intelligence that had led Wilson to take him in in the first place was completely submerged.

Wilson sighed and looked down at the bath mat, then went about unbuttoning his cuffs so that he could roll up his sleeves. About halfway through, he heard House moving around, and then he crept into Wilson's field of vision, wary and ill at ease, vibrant eyes darting around the bathroom as he sidled up to Wilson's leg and pressed his flank to Wilson's calf. Wilson continued to ignore him and made a ridiculously prolonged ritual out of rolling his sleeves up. In his periphery, he watched House sniff the steamy air and then curl his tail around his legs as he sat on Wilson's foot. Still tense but less angry, House fluffed himself, cast a distrustful glance up toward Wilson's face, and then engrossed himself in a grooming ritual that couldn't possibly make any difference to the amount of grime and dirt that had left his hair tufted in muddy spikes all over his body. Not that House was all that furry, but there was enough to notice.

Wilson finished with his sleeves and reached down to pat House on the head. House flinched and wrinkled his nose up at Wilson long enough to ascertain that Wilson's behavior didn't constitute a threat. Satisfied, House left off the preening and wrapped his tail around Wilson's ankle. The next look he cast up at Wilson seemed sheepish, as if House were apologizing for his uncivilized behavior.

"It's okay," Wilson told him. House quickly averted his eyes as if to pretend that he hadn't just expressed remorse of any kind, bristled, and spastically licked his paw. Wilson had come to recognize this as a sort of nervous tick, something akin to embarrassment, and it softened him. House was a pain in the ass, but he was Wilson's pain in the ass. No one else could stand the poor thing, and House wouldn't suffer any of them even if they could.

For several minutes, Wilson just stood there with House curled partway around his leg, watching House breathe and study the room as only he could. Eventually, the tension bled from his wiry frame and he relaxed against Wilson, slumping down inch by inch until he was practically sprawled over Wilson's feet, purring in a tentative fashion.

Wilson carefully knelt down with his knees on either side of House's lanky frame and held a hand out, palm down, asking for permission to touch. House stretched and his purring ratcheted up several notches when Wilson ran his hand over House's head, cupping an ear before he scratched behind it. House pressed his head against Wilson's hand and let out a happy mew, squirming his face into the caress.

Wilson chuckled when House lapped at his palm. He had a scratchy tongue. "All's forgiven, huh?"

House meowed around a purr, and it came out wonderfully garbled.

"You scratched me, you know." Wilson left off petting him and showed him the long slashes on the back of his hand. The red lines weren't deep, but they wrapped up around his wrist.

House stopped basking long enough to look at the scratches, and then he leaned up to lick the blood off. It was an oddly tender gesture from such a hard, antisocial creature, but House had always seemed to have a soft spot for Wilson. He looked positively blissful as he lapped at Wilson's skin, as if it were milk he were cleaning off rather than evidence of his baser nature.

Wilson couldn't help the fondness that broke over his features as he watched House offer his own brand of affection. House had licked at him in the past, but only to get at drops of tuna juice or because parts of Wilson were draped over the limbs that House was busy cleaning. This was something else entirely; it was like an acknowledgement of acceptance. Wilson had known House for years, and he had never done that before – treated Wilson like an equal, like a feline member of his pride.

Even though he knew he risked ruining the moment, Wilson remarked, "You're still filthy."

House paused with his abrasive tongue still stuck to Wilson's palm, then flopped back to the floor in a blatant sulk. The purring petered out a second later.

Wilson snorted and rubbed House's belly, only to have House swipe at him. It was a closed paw, at least – claws retracted. "Oh, don't be like that. I feed you. You have to be nice to me."

The look House gave him implied otherwise.

Wilson shrugged. "Okay, fine then. Be a jerk." He untangled himself from House's tail and made as if to stand and leave, but House scrambled to roll over and planted his paws against Wilson's chest. He'd never done that before. "What?" Wilson asked, slightly disconcerted. "What do you want?"

House nosed the air near Wilson's chin as if he were sampling his scent, then rubbed his forehead over Wilson's cheek. When Wilson didn't react, he paused, made a strange sound like a chirp, and licked a single stripe over Wilson's jaw.

Wilson started. "Um. House?"

House chirruped again and pressed his nose against Wilson's cheek, quickly following the gesture with another lick, his tongue warm and mostly dry, but rough like sandpaper.

Wilson swallowed, nervous now. He pressed a hand to House's chest, intending to push him off, but for some reason, he didn't. He could feel the low rumble of a subtle purr against his fingers, and it fascinated him. House rarely let Wilson touch him like this.

Apparently, House took the reciprocal touch as encouragement, because he chittered happily and licked along Wilson's cheek with more gusto. All Wilson could figure was that House was grooming him, and while he found the sentiment touching, the act itself kind of creeped him out. He flinched when the tips of House's claws dug into his chest, the tips poking into his skin despite his shirt. It took him a moment to realize that House was kneading at him, and then he flushed when House's tongue lapped down to his neck.

"House." Wilson pushed gently at the big cat, nowhere near hard enough to dislodge him, but he wanted to discourage this now. Two possibilities came to mind, especially when House began suckling at his carotid. Either House was comfortable enough in Wilson's presence to treat him like a mother cat and give into the inborn drive to suckle and knead at him for milk, or…other. Wilson didn't really want to think about 'other' right now because he had never considered such a thing before in his life. He preferred to think of this as House viewing him as a provider of nourishment and reacting as nature intended. Full-blooded cats did it on occasion, even strays; they eventually came to trust their owner and behave like their owner's kitten, at least in some ways. It was instinct.

Except that Wilson found himself enjoying the sensation a little too much. House's gentle kneading sent sharp pricks catapulting through his nervous system, and the suckling at his neck didn't help matters. Neither did the increase in the volume of House's purring, or the soft mews that worked their ways from House's throat.

House rose up on his haunches and Wilson had to brace his hand against the wall behind him to keep from being shoved over onto the floor. House growled quietly and Wilson's breath rushed from his lungs as House sucked hard enough to bruise the skin. Against his better judgment, Wilson tipped his head to the side to give House more room, and House let out a rumbling meow. Pure pleasure, that sound. Wilson swallowed hard to keep from echoing him and ghosted a hand up House's flank, all the while thinking, _Wrong, this is wrong, this is so wrong…_

House nipped him suddenly and Wilson flinched even as his back arched imperceptibly. House mewed again and let his mouth wander, licking across Wilson's throat, up his chin, and then over his lips to the crease of his nose. It tickled a little bit and Wilson watched House's face, the blue eyes closed, expression lax and then pained, as if this were doing something for House – tasting him and relishing it in the most perverse fashion.

It struck him then, what would happen if he let House go on like this. Wilson stiffened and cast a guilty glance around the bathroom, as if he expected to find…what, police? Physically, House was a fuzzy man with big ears and a tail. Physiologically, he was practically human. But his genes were spliced with a cat's, and he behaved like an animal – the law considered him to be an animal… God, did that make this bestiality? Wilson tensed and constricted his throat to stay silent. What they hell would people think if they found out? Could he be arrested for it? For that matter, was House capable of what society called informed consent? He was intelligent, yes, but _that_ self-aware? Or was this just – just another instinct, a mating instinct, a hormonal thing like a dog humping somebody's leg, oh god, this was wrong, he had to stop them both. Nobody took the leg humping for a proposition of sex. Wilson couldn't let this happen, no matter how soft House's downy skin felt under his hand, or how good he smelled, or how provocative and soothing that purring could be, like a damned engine.

Wilson brought his other hand up and shoved House without warning. House squawked and overbalanced, and Wilson cringed as he toppled into the shower, right under the spray. It would have been comical if Wilson hadn't felt like such a douche for doing it. House thrashed, claws clacking against the tile as he tried to get his paws under him, and then he pressed himself to the back of the shower and shivered at the fresh wetness seeping into his skin, his eyes wide and wounded, staring at Wilson as if he'd just been betrayed in the most horrible way. It was such a human expression, and when House broke eye contact and pulled himself into a quivering ball, Wilson had to look away. He could see the shame in that posture, cat or no. House could have been fully human for all that mattered now; Wilson had rejected the only show of affection he had ever offered.

Wilson ran a hand through his hair and fought to breathe for a moment. A tiny ache blossomed in his chest like heartburn, but he ignored it. Or he did until he gazed into the shower again and saw House's ears drooping, looking forlorn as he huddled as far away from the shower spray as he could get. Rivulets of muddy water ran down over his skin to mix with the swirls meandering into the drain. His tail just sat limply in the water as if it were an article of clothing thoughtlessly cast aside. Shivers wracked his body in short bursts, and Wilson wondered if hybrid cats had tear ducts where their full-blooded counterparts did not. He certainly looked like he could be crying, or at least weeping in complete and utter silence.

That was when Wilson noticed that the water had taken on a reddish hue now that a majority of the dirt had sluiced off. Without thinking, Wilson scrambled forward, ignoring the fact that he was clothed, and crouched next to House in the shower. House curled away from him, into the tiled wall, which merely afforded Wilson a better view of the lacerations running down his back, inscribed in a few lines that cut across his knobby spine, perfectly visible beneath the paltry covering of fur that House was losing in his older age. When hybrids went bald, it was all over, as opposed to a human just losing head hair or a full-blooded cat losing nothing at all.

House really had gotten into a fight, and not with some alley cat. The scratches were wide-set and deep. Something like him had done this – another hybrid cat, or perhaps a dog, and House had taken the worst of it. Now that Wilson was paying attention, he noticed the sliced ear and the bite mark on his right shoulder – a nice deep one with ugly punctures from incisors. Another set of claw marks marred House's right arm, and then random scratches all along his side and down to his hip hinted at a violent sort of struggle.

"Oh, House." Wilson ran his fingers over the marks on his back and House curled more tightly into the corner of the shower. A thin mewl escaped him and Wilson reached out to tug him away from the wall. "Is that why you're being nice to me? Come here, kitten. Come on. It's okay."

At the open concern in Wilson's voice, House uncoiled enough that Wilson could pull him against his chest, and he let himself be held and petted and cooed at as if he really were a dumb pet. But he wouldn't look at Wilson, and his body didn't lose an ounce of the tension that Wilson's shove had left him with.

"Who did this?" Wilson asked uselessly; House couldn't answer in people words, but it seemed like something that Wilson should ask. "Hm? Who did this to you?"

House drew his legs up and wrapped his arms and tail around them, tucking himself in against Wilson as if to steal his warmth.

Wilson smoothed the fur and hair back between House's ears and then merely held House's head to his chest so that House's ear rested over Wilson's heart. Wilson knew that with his acute hearing, House would be able to listen to the thumps of his pulse beat. This was trust, Wilson thought morosely. This was a lonely, wild animal so starved for a gentle hand that even after being pushed away, he would try again not because he thought that the second attempt would work, but simply because he wanted it so badly that he had no choice.

House gave a weak purr and then evidently abandoned the effort. He ducked his head under Wilson's arm and stuffed his face into Wilson's damp shirt, his claws snagging accidentally at the fabric.

"Hey." Wilson gathered him closer and folded himself over the shivering cat in his arms. "It's okay, kitten. I'm not mad. And I'm sorry. I really am, but that isn't…I mean…god, I don't even know if you understand me. House, we can't do that sort of thing, okay? You're a sweet cat, and you're welcome here anytime you want, but not…not like that, okay?" Wilson nosed at House's ear, the bleeding one, and then let loose a sigh into the soft graying hair on top of his head. "I wish you could talk because I don't think you understand what just happened."

House pawed at Wilson's knee and then squirmed until he was more or less laying across Wilson's lap, the way they did on the couch most nights with House's head pillowed on Wilson's thigh and his long paws curled subtly around Wilson's knee. Usually, this pose signaled contentment for both of them, but all Wilson felt was an unabiding sadness. There was no vibration running through House's body, he realized; he wasn't purring at all. House merely stared at the tile wall in front of them, unblinking, his ribcage rising and falling as he breathed. Wilson's hand wandered to grasp House's shoulder as it usually did, but it wasn't a comforting action anymore. He had thought he understood what motivated House to keep coming home to him, but now he wasn't sure at all.

Wilson shifted and leaned over to better murmur where House could hear him over the roar of the shower. "House – "

House emitted a low growl as if to warn him not to move anymore than he already had. A few claws snuck out when he curled his paw more tightly over Wilson's knee. It felt almost like a protective gesture – protecting the moment, that is, from any further attempts on Wilson's part to upset the balance of their admittedly abnormal relationship.

"I know," Wilson replied, even though he really didn't. "Look, let's just…let me wash you and then I'll take a look at all of these, okay?" He brushed his hand over the freshly bleeding bite mark on House's shoulder. "You don't want these to get infected, do you? I'd have to take you to the vet, and you know how much you hate that."

House bristled at the utterance of the hated V-word and dug his claws more sharply into Wilson's knee.

"Ow! Hey – let go." Wilson snatched at the offending paw and pried it off, then pressed the pads of House's hand to get him to sheath the claws before he laid it back on his knee. "I won't drag you there if you let me patch you up. Remember? We have a deal." Wilson had never repeated that one horrific visit to the vet, less because House had made it supremely difficult than because Wilson hadn't liked the veterinarian practices one bit. He could still remember the howling coming from the back rooms that the stupid man had taken House to. That, and the discussion about neutering House had so squicked him that he couldn't possibly stomach hauling him to such a place again. There was no way Wilson could conscience doing such a thing to House, not when he looked at House and saw something so close to a man in his face. Now, Wilson ordered House's vaccinations from 1-800-PET-MEDS and administered them himself every year. "Come on," Wilson coaxed, petting over House's head and shoulders in that way that he knew House liked. "You know I won't hurt you. Right?" Wilson held his hand in front of House's nose. "You know that, right?"

House wrinkled his nose, started to shun the proferred hand, and then decided to nuzzle it instead. Wilson held still for this, recognizing their old manner of approving of each other. When House had first starting coming around, Wilson had had to do this every time they met – show his hand and let House sniff him as if they were strangers. The first time House had reached up to paw Wilson's face in turn, Wilson had gone still as a statue, convinced that he was about to be mauled. He had sworn that House had looked exasperated at his lack of comprehension; the second time House tried it, Wilson had gently pressed his cheek against the rough paw, and House had purred with delight. The big cat's approval had left Wilson feeling giddy, as if he had just tamed a lion.

"So," Wilson said. "We're good?"

House seemed sullen still, but Wilson could have been reading into that. It was so easy to anthropomorphize an animal that looked so human. In any case, House just laid there, so Wilson stretched his arm back to snag the shampoo bottle and squeezed a gloppy line down House's knobby back. House made a show of squirming in annoyance as Wilson worked up a lather, and then he sneezed at the flowery smell of it. Undeterred, Wilson worked the shampoo into House's fur, and eventually, the knots and tension eased from House's body. He grew languid under Wilson's ministrations until he was pretty much stretched out along the floor of the shower, three paws in the air as Wilson soaped up his belly and worked suds into his chest, his eyes closed in an almost sinful pleasure, purring to his heart's content.

What House didn't notice was that every time Wilson's fingers encountered a new scratch or cut, he frowned and glanced away for a moment, wondering what the hell had happened. House had come home with injuries before, had even managed to get himself hit by a car once, permanently impairing the function of his right hind leg, but he never showed up looking like this. Perhaps some other cat had encroached on his territory. Wilson knew that House didn't stray from his own area; he had certain haunts that he kept to out of what Wilson could label antisocial tendencies, and though House could be aggressive, he didn't intentionally pick fights. In fact, the more Wilson examined the wounds, the more convinced he was that House hadn't been attacked by another hybrid. The bite mark didn't look as if it had come from another big cat; the fangs weren't deep enough. In fact, they looked human.

Wilson kept rubbing House's belly as he used the handheld sprayer to rinse the soap from his fur. "House…did people do this to you?"

House went still, disturbingly so, his eyes blinking open in two wary shocks of the brightest blue to fix on Wilson.

Wilson stopped rinsing, the sprayer held away from them, and gazed calmly back. "Did people attack you, kitten? Is that what happened?"

House rolled onto his side, toward Wilson, and wrapped his lanky, soapy limbs around Wilson's waist, his head resting in foamy water. Inscrutable, he stared back as if willing Wilson to understand, his head tilted at a curious angle, one ear plastered to the tiles.

To himself, Wilson mumbled, "It is. Somebody attacked you." He hardly noticed when House shifted to nudge at Wilson's hand, looking to be petted again, or lathered, or rinsed – something. Animal cruelty was nothing new, but certain sorts took special offense to hybrids, as if they were freaks of nature. Which they were, in a way, being genetically engineered species. But still…his House had never bothered a person; he avoided them at all costs, save for Wilson and a tiny handful of Wilson's friends from the hospital, who he tolerated looking at him but not touching. House wouldn't have fought unless he had felt threatened, which meant that someone had chased him – several someones, probably, because House stretched to over six feet long and he was no weakling. A group of people had chased him and cornered him, and then attacked him for no reason. When had it happened? Later in the day, probably; it was no doubt the reason House had turned up so late. He had probably managed to get away, and then spent these hours hiding someplace in an alley, his scent masked by filth. Wilson felt sick, imagining how scared House must have been, and how much he must trust Wilson to have come back to the apartment – to a person – after that.

An irritated mew drew Wilson's attention down again, and he watched House absently lick at own knuckles before segueing to Wilson's forearm without a thought. A second later, House froze, his tongue hanging from his mouth, to stare up at Wilson with such a terrified expression that Wilson's chest tightened. House thought he had done something bad – he expected Wilson to shove him off again, like before, onto the cold, hard tile floor. To reassure him, Wilson set the shower sprayer aside and combed his fingers through the damp fur around House's uninjured ear. He let House's ear rest between his index and middle finger, and massaged House's scalp as if nothing odd had occurred tonight.

House's eyes drifted closed and he arched into Wilson's hand with a contented rumble, one leg stretching out behind him in sympathetic pleasure. Wilson grinned at the wanton enjoyment and before he knew what he was doing, Wilson had cupped House's head and pressed his nose back to the spot he had just been licking water from. House obediently took up where he had left off, his scratchy tongue swiping lazily at the drops of condensation on Wilson's wrist and forearm. He hardly seemed cognizant of his own actions, consumed as he was by the attention Wilson paid to the top of his head. A long arm wrapped around Wilson's waist as House rolled back into him, and Wilson felt House kneading absently at the small of his back. It was a pleasant sensation, almost like a massage; House had strong paws.

Before Wilson could even think of protesting again, House had curled himself around Wilson's lap and shoved his face into the crook of Wilson's elbow to suck off the water there. He alternated with broader strokes of his tongue, catching on the hair on Wilson's arm so that Wilson felt prickly after each swipe. When House's nose encountered the sleeve of Wilson's shirt, he snuffed his way over the fabric, lapping at the cotton here and there until he found the skin of Wilson's neck again.

A twinge of unease coiled around Wilson's intestines again, but he couldn't deny how good it felt to have that scratchy tongue on him. For all he knew, House didn't understand exactly what it meant to a human to be suckled there, but House was so damn enthusiastic that Wilson figured he could go to hell for it later. He pulled House up until House planted his paws on Wilson's thighs, still kneading and purring like a well-tuned engine, stretched up on his haunches to reach when Wilson arched his back to gaze up at the ceiling. It had just been so long, Wilson thought, since anyone devoted such time and focus to him. He was only human, after all.

Wilson cast his remaining reservations aside and pulled House down on top of him as he laid back on the shower floor. House snuggled his way down between Wilson's legs, his own drawn up over Wilson's left hip, paws at Wilson's shoulders. They laid tangled like this on the couch sometimes, innocently enough, and Wilson let his head rest back on the tiles as House continued to pretty much groom him, claws snagging at cotton as he kneaded and pulled at Wilson's chest.

When House began to snuff around Wilson's collar, obviously irritated by the barrier it presented, Wilson unbuttoned the shirt and refused to examine his motivations for doing it. He slithered his out of the damp cotton without sitting up far enough to dislodge House's lanky form, and then tossed the sodden mess out onto the bath mat. House happily took to washing him as if he were also a cat, tongue all over Wilson's torso, occasionally nipping and pulling at Wilson's chest hair as if he were using his teeth as a comb and sought to untangle it. It hurt a little, but pleasantly so, and Wilson didn't even want to think about the effect it was all having on him. Heavy body on top of him, rumbling purr that vibrated House's entire frame, the way House was laying so that his stomach fit so perfectly between Wilson's legs, the curve of House's hips and thighs over and between his own, with just the right amount of pressure over certain parts of his anatomy…yeah, Wilson was definitely going to hell for this, but later. For now, he didn't really give a damn about the morality of it. In fact, he hooked his left leg over one of House's to pull him in more tightly. House didn't seem to mind.

Eventually, House's grooming ritual slowed and stopped, and Wilson peeled an eye open to find him resting his head between his paws, his face pressed into Wilson's navel with his ears flopping over the backs of his knuckles. He still heaved with his happy purring, tucked snuggly – and rather obscenely, Wilson conceded – between Wilson's legs, his elbows flopping over Wilson's hips. By some miracle, the shower water was still warm and a light steam drifted over their wet bodies. House looked so innocently content down there that Wilson carded his hands through House's hair and scratched behind an ear. House sighed in a burst of rumbling purrs and rubbed his whiskery face all over Wilson's hand and stomach. Then he absently suckled at the skin of Wilson's stomach, eyes closed as if he were barely conscious.

Wilson encouraged the behavior out of some perverse curiosity to see just what House might do, if he were given the freedom to act however his instincts dictated. He considered it a triumph even as he blushed in shame when House slithered up Wilson's torso, ran into a nipple, and commenced to treat it like the mammary gland it was. In fact, he went at it with such gusto that Wilson could only imagine that House actually expected to get milk from it.

A tiny part of Wilson decided that if he were capable of lactating, he would happily feed House au naturale from now on. The perversity of the thought startled him, but it did nothing to lessen the shocks of arousal that House's avid suckling produced. Feeling dirty and depraved the whole time, Wilson laced his fingers over the back of House's neck to hold his head in place and flexed up against his mouth with a low moan.

House froze, his mouth still latched over Wilson's right nipple, cut off in mid purr. Wilson opened his heavily lidded eyes – he didn't even remember closing them – to find House blinking up at him, a calculating gaze. From the way he shifted his stomach between Wilson's legs, he had obviously noticed the activity of certain parts of Wilson's anatomy, though whether or not he understood was, again, not clear. Wilson cast his mind back over the years, but he couldn't recall House ever acting like a courting tomcat. House had occasionally slunk through the apartment and weaved around Wilson's legs in an alluring manner, but all cats acted like that from time to time. House had probably never gotten caught up in a mating frenzy simply because he never went near enough to members of his own species to have the opportunity.

Wilson forced himself to settle down, a flush of shame heating his cheeks, and gently stroked a few fingers over House's face. House still hadn't released his nipple and Wilson felt his teeth graze over the nub before he resumed suckling, hesitant now and seeming a bit confused by Wilson's reaction, but unwilling to stop. The act must have soothed House just as much as it excited Wilson, and the wrongness of taking such advantage of him left Wilson feeling nauseous. House had no idea what he was doing in a human context; he viewed Wilson as a caregiver, and here Wilson was, exploiting the first clear sign of affection that House had ever expressed.

A stuttering purr rumbled through House's back, betraying his uncertainty, and Wilson had to break eye contact. He felt like a cad, more so because his erection hadn't subsided in the least. When House took to exploring the whole of Wilson's chest again, a few tears of shame leaked out to mix with the shower spray, and then his breathing hitched nonspecifically when House lifted himself with his front paws bracketing Wilson's waist. He felt the tentative brush of whiskers skimming his stomach, and then he glanced down to find House sniffing at his crotch with such an intense expression of concentration that Wilson found it hard to believe that he wasn't human.

"House."

House paused in his examinations and lifted his head, cocked to one side in a curious manner.

Wilson shook his head and tugged at House's arm to discourage any further exploration down there. "No, House. Bad."

House made a face that Wilson could only describe as put upon, and worked his way carefully up onto all fours. He crawled up Wilson's body in the most disconcerting manner, until his face hovered over Wilson's, nostrils flaring as he kept smelling at him.

"Off," Wilson ordered. He shoved at House's shoulder to punctuate this, but the stubborn cat refused to let him up. "House, off."

Pure attitude greeting that command, and House hissed at him. It wasn't a threat, per se; merely an expression of disagreement. Still, having House's face so close to his own when he did it scared Wilson a little; he could see all four of the sharp canine teeth from that vantage point. House wasn't really an aggressive creature. He had a stubborn streak, to be sure, and he had this way of manipulating Wilson into giving him whatever he wanted, but he didn't get like this. Wilson imagined how thick the pheromones must be to House's sensitive nose and wondered if he had just inadvertently outed himself as competition of some sort. Leave it to Wilson's damn libido to ruin an otherwise stable friendship.

More sharply now, Wilson repeated, "Off," and shoved harder at House's shoulder.

House twisted to absorb the push, firmly braced as he was with Wilson trapped beneath him, and emitted a dark, throaty growl. His tail whipped back and forth and Wilson found himself pressing back into the shower floor, fear slithering through to displace the earlier arousal. No doubt, House would smell that too, and if he had suddenly decided that Wilson was a competitor in his territory, it wouldn't help Wilson. Hybrids had been known to become violent – the news reported maulings every now and then, and the right wingers touted them as evidence that the breeding programs should be shut down and the hybrids themselves either quarantined or destroyed, but House had always seemed rather docile to Wilson. Maybe House's earlier fight had affected his disposition. Or maybe, like his tomcat counterparts, House was sliding off into feral realms.

When House ducked down, Wilson flinched, waiting for teeth and wondering if he were capable of fighting off an enraged House. All House did, though, was nose at his cheek and push his face against Wilson's forehead. Then his tongue followed, and Wilson trembled as House licked the hair back from his left temple prior to nibbling his ear. That didn't relax him in the slightest; he had watched full-blooded cats groom each other in this fashion just prior to biting each other in a frenzy of hisses and spits. And yet, in human terms, the sensation of a tongue in the ear was so undeniably erotic that Wilson shuddered.

House mewled in response, and if that wasn't a pleased sound, Wilson didn't know what was. He kept his eyes closed as House draped himself all over Wilson again, and Wilson swore that House deliberately put pressure against his groin as he settled. Wilson gasped when House bit lightly at his neck and then the purring resumed, a bubbly sound like brewing coffee.

Wilson trembled and breathed out a tremulous, "Hoh-kay."

House had taken to innocently licking his neck again, straying now and then to collect fresh beads of moisture from Wilson's cheeks and the edges of his hair, as if he were trying to calm Wilson's frazzled nerves. The rumbling in House's chest spilled over to Wilson's until he felt as if he were sprawled under a wet, vibrating blanket that smelled like shampoo and wet cat. There was fur all over the place, stuck to Wilson's hands and arms, but he didn't care overmuch. An impulse to flee crystallized in Wilson's mind, but House bore down on him as if he could sense it. Pinned and shivering from something other than the damp air, Wilson tentatively stroked House's uninjured ear, and then placed both of his palms on House's back, just below his shoulder blades.

House made an appreciative sound and seemed to grow heavier, pressing down all along Wilson's front, relinquishing his weight. His paws made their way to Wilson's scalp and started kneading there, but gently, with barely a hint of claws. Wet purrs spilled from House's open mouth as he continued grooming Wilson, and eventually, House propped himself up on his elbows and curved over Wilson's head, moving his knees up to bracket Wilson's ribcage and leaving his hind paws resting on Wilson's hips so that he could properly lick the only truly hairy part of Wilson's body.

A giggle snuck out of Wilson's mouth as House went at his hair with single-minded abandon, tongue pulling at wet clumps in a discernable pattern, licking it straight back the way he might his own fur. Wilson soft laughter seemed to spur House on and he licked with more enthusiasm, as if it pleased him to have found something that Wilson enjoyed as much as he himself liked it when Wilson played with the tufts of fur at the tips of his ears. It took Wilson a second to guess that his laughter must remind House of a cat's purring with the way it shook his chest. House himself was purring like a freight train now, shuddering under Wilson's hands, the sound of it rising over the hiss of the discarded shower sprayer.

For some reason, the whole situation struck Wilson as absurd at that moment. He started laughing helplessly, and House paused before apparently deciding that Wilson's reaction warranted a face wash. The scratchy tongue bathed his cheeks, his brows, the curves of his nose, and then House stopped. Wilson opened his eyes, his mirth fading as he caught the uncertainty in House's gaze. House broke eye contact and looked down at Wilson's mouth, then nosed his lips once before going still again.

It took Wilson a comparative eternity to realize that House didn't want to kiss him; he was looking for reciprocation. Wilson groaned and rolled his eyes at his own stupidity, and then touched House's nose to stop him from drawing back from the unexpected sound. Wilson craned his neck up, hesitated, and then licked at House's whiskered cheek. He tasted funny. Not bad, but weird. Like a cat, basically.

House quivered all over and nosed Wilson's lips again, more insistently this time. With a snort, Wilson's tongue caught him before he could draw back again, and House seemed puzzled when Wilson licked at his lips instead of properly grooming his face. Wilson didn't give him time to analyze that; he moved on to lapping the condensation from House's jaw and House helpfully tilted his head this way and that to present Wilson with all of the parts of his face that he wanted Wilson to wash. When House tucked his chin to put his ears in easy reach of Wilson's mouth, Wilson eyed the fur before licking a stripe up the delicate, fuzzy appendage.

He immediately pulled a face and tried to spit out the tiny hairs that had gotten caught on his tongue. After he had raked his fingers over his taste buds and removed the fur, Wilson looked up to find House peering down at him as if he were offended. Wilson quirked an eyebrow at him and House glared, but he kept his ears to himself after that. Unfortunately, he also stayed away from Wilson's ears. Wilson considered this a grievous loss, but fair was fair.

After a while, a languid ease stole into their mutual grooming. House had slid off to curl around Wilson's side, one leg tangled between Wilson's and the other draped over Wilson's hips, placed obscenely but probably without intent. Wilson had slung an arm around House's waist to hold him close. House mewled now and then between the purrs, which were tapering off as he apparently drifted toward sleep in spite of the running shower and the hard floor. He must have been exhausted; by Wilson's estimation, House had turned up sore, tired and bedraggled at half past ten, and they had been in the shower for the better part of an hour.

For his own part, Wilson found the entire situation unexpectedly erotic – licking all over each other's bodies, pressing together on the floor… But he refused to impose on House's good nature, or on the offering that House had presented him with, odd as it was. Wilson still wore his pants even though they were soaked through and clinging uncomfortably to his thighs, his erection aching in its confinement. He tried to keep the encounter chaste out of respect for House, whatever respect might mean between a man and a six-foot-long hybrid cat that liked to suck on his nipples.

When Wilson stopped licking and slumped back on the floor, House shifted to follow the warmth of his body, his paw coming to rest over Wilson's heart. A few seconds passed in silence, and then Wilson furrowed his brow. House squirmed a bit to press more tightly against him, and…oh. Wilson's eyes went wide as he stared up at the ceiling. Evidently, he wasn't the only one with a problem in his lower regions. Well, that was…unexpected.

House whined in irritation at Wilson's sharply indrawn breath, then peeled an eye open to glare at him for disturbing the peace. He shifted again, and this time, Wilson couldn't mistake the push of his hips as he pressed himself against the outside of Wilson's thigh. It obviously felt good – House's eyes fluttered closed again – but whether he knew what it meant or not, whether or not he could even conceive of what came next, Wilson honestly didn't know. Instinct normally governed things like this, but House's lazy sprawl and his lack of initiative seemed to argue against him having a normal inborn drive for it. Or perhaps Wilson just smelled all wrong, and House didn't recognize him as a prospective mate. Wilson laid there for a while trying to decide if this were a good thing or not.

The third time that House shifted to relieve the pressure on his private parts, to gain the friction he couldn't help but crave in this state, Wilson rolled his eyes and groaned, "Fuck it."

House twitched at the words and then reluctantly allowed Wilson to reposition them – griping and grumbling the whole time – so that House was laying on his back on the floor with Wilson sitting on his stomach.

Wilson studied his old fuzzy friend with a critical eye, afraid of what he had just decided to do. "House. Good kitty?"

The look on House's face implied supreme boredom.

"Right," Wilson answered himself. "Okay." He leaned down, his eyes trained up on House's expressive face, and licked one of House's nipples. They had traded this favor already and House seemed unimpressed with him, as if to demand to know why Wilson had disturbed his coming slumber just to lick him some more.

Undaunted, Wilson latched his mouth over the nub and slid his left hand down between their bodies until he felt House stiffen. He waited, his hand dangerously close to House's groin, and when House didn't hiss or bat at his head, Wilson slid his fingers through the remains of soapsuds until he could cup House's private parts.

House flinched, hissed, and then yowled softly, his claws dug into his own chest and his hind legs scrabbling against the tiles on either side of Wilson's.

"Good kitten," Wilson whispered. He watched House's mouth open soundlessly as Wilson stroked gently at the flesh in his left hand, tensed to flee the bathroom at a moment's notice, should House decide he didn't like this. It was just like touching a human, Wilson thought, except for the part where he ghosted a finger lower and encountered testicles covered in the softest expanse of short, thick fur he had ever felt. And the rest of the skin was smoother than his own, kind of...maybe something like suede? It was hard to quantify.

House's head went back, digging into the tiles, and his stomach tensed until his hind paws and shoulders both left the floor. Wilson breathed a sigh of relief, then hoped that it wasn't a preemptive feeling. House could still object or bolt, or worse. Hoping to forestall this, Wilson rolled carefully off of him and stretched out on his back, watching to see what House would do next.

House merely panted for a moment, and then he wrinkled his whole face up in consternation before he squirmed up on all fours to stare at Wilson. Once it became clear to him that Wilson didn't intend to do anything more, House blinked off into the distance, glanced over his shoulder at the soapy mound dotting the shower stall, and took to licking Wilson's stomach and chest again. Just like before. Clearly, he wanted to repeat the whole exercise to see if Wilson would touch him like that again; his actions were too methodical for anything less.

When he reached Wilson's neck again, stretched out over Wilson's torso with his paws on either side of Wilson's ribcage, Wilson rewarded his efforts with another gentle grope. House shivered and licked him hard enough to sand his skin off, but Wilson didn't mind. He worked his fingers over House's length, ears attuned to the faint mewling caught in the back of House's throat, and then thumbed House's frenulum as he might thumb his own, rubbing tiny circles there to see if it felt as good for House as it did on himself.

House froze with his tongue plastered to Wilson's pulse point, eyes drifting shut as if he needed to concentrate on the sensation. His hips gave a tiny twitch against Wilson's hand and then a groan garbled into a purr on his next exhale. He sounded almost human, his voice straying into a deep, lusty register as Wilson stimulated him in ways a cat couldn't accomplish on his own, lacking blunt fingertips as he did. In his periphery, Wilson noticed the claws come out, but it wasn't a threatening act. Quite the contrary – House gouged at the tiles and sucked his tongue back into his mouth as he rubbed his nose and forehead over Wilson's chest, his lower half squirming into Wilson's palm while he made the strangest nasally wheezing sounds behind his teeth.

Wilson gave a stuttering sort of smile, still hardly able to believe what he was doing, and urged House closer, until the big cat rubbed his chest all over Wilson's on his way to sprawling on top of him. Wilson spread his legs and House slipped helplessly between them, his hips nestled against Wilson's, and god, if that didn't feel fucking wonderful… Wilson planted his feet and pushed his pelvis up, and House chirped out what Wilson could only call a whimper, mirroring the movement until without any warning, they were thrusting against each other in a constant if awkward rhythm.

House moved like liquid, limbs flowing over Wilson's, paws clenching to unsheathe claws in time on every other thrust. It was all Wilson could do to work his hands between them to open his pants; House seemed incapable of interrupting himself for anything less than a fire alarm, and probably not even then. A fair bit of muscle work resulted in Wilson peeling his soaked khakis down to his upper thighs, and then he gave up and wrapped his legs around House's body, ankles crossed in the small of House's back.

All the jostling must have upset House just a little bit, because there were suddenly claws puncturing Wilson's shoulder blades. "Ow! God dammit!"

House jumped at the words and then scrambled suddenly to get off of Wilson. He had enough grasp of Wilson's vocabulary to know which words constituted swearing, and that they didn't normally mean anything good. They were what Wilson referred to as hunker-down words because they made House run for a dark corner. Wilson only used them when he was pissed about House chewing on plants or clawing the couch, or once, peeing in his shoe. Whatever the hell had possessed House to do that, Wilson didn't know, but he had never done it again, that was for sure. Wilson had banished him from the apartment for a week, and it had been January. They had reached an understanding after that: if House didn't follow Wilson's rules, he wouldn't be allowed to sleep inside. It worked remarkably well, actually; Wilson had discouraged all sorts of bad behaviors by simply pointing at the door and snapping, 'Out.'

"Hey, hey, no," Wilson hurried to say. He cinched his arm more firmly over House's waist to keep him from scurrying off to hide under the bed in all of his wet glory. "Good House. It's okay. Not mad at you."

House flinched anyway and darted his eyes around in search of escape, convinced he was about to be punished or thrown out.

"No, it's okay," Wilson promised. He tried to demonstrate this by nuzzling House's forehead, but House swatted his head with a closed paw and hissed. Rather than risk getting his face clawed off, Wilson tucked his head against House's chest and did his best imitation of a purr.

House went still, positively petrified, and then sneezed all over Wilson's head.

Wilson pulled a face, thankful that he didn't feel any snot hit his hair, and mumbled, "Okay, now?" He kept his face pressed into the sparse fur of House's sternum. "Good kitten. See? Good kitten – not mad."

House grumble-mewled, aggravated and unsettled, but sank down again. Wilson ignored the inquisitive sound that House emitted in several rapid, short chirps. When Wilson spread his legs and nudged at House with his knee, House slipped back into place as easily as an old partner and allowed Wilson to curl them tightly together even though he didn't seem comfortable anymore.

"Settle," Wilson encouraged. He ran his fingers through House's fur and petted down the back of his neck until House tucked his head down on Wilson's shoulder, his face pressed into Wilson's hair. For the sake of harmony, Wilson swallowed his disgust and licked pointedly behind House's ear, hoping to recapture the easy atmosphere that he had just ruined with an ill-thought exclamation.

House purr-whined and curled over him, bringing their groins back into contact. Wilson felt House's breath hitch and hugged him close, as if he were a person, subtly angling his hips up in return. House chuffed into Wilson's ear and then sighed his way into a furious purr.

"That's right," Wilson soothed. He let his own voice fall into a deep rumble in the hopes that it sort of sounded like a purr. The claws poked at Wilson's shoulders again, and Wilson realized that House couldn't really help the way his paws curled in to gouge at whatever he could reach, just like a person scrabbling to grab hold of his partner as the rhythm spun out of control.

Wilson considered the situation for a moment while House mouthed and suckled him in a fit of distraction, and then he worked House up onto his elbows so that he could grasp House by the wrists. House shifted restlessly, but he kept his face mashed against Wilson's collarbone and let Wilson press his thumbs into the pads of his paws. It was almost like holding hands, except that now, when House curled his claws out in reflexive tension, the placement of Wilson's thumbs prevented him from gouging anything.

"There," Wilson murmured into the ear nearest his face. "All better."

House flexed in nothing other than an aroused fit, and Wilson leaned his head back to watch House arch his neck, chin extending upwards as his whole body elongated. His paws folded in toward Wilson's thumbs, but the claws could only rake the air now. That pose was quite possibly the most erotic thing Wilson had ever seen, made more poignant by the way it felt to be pinned under him when he did it. He could see House's throat vibrate with the growly purr that tumbled from him, followed by the lowest, longest meow that Wilson had ever heard him make.

Wilson shivered as the sound echoed off the tiles, imagining a cascade of droplets sliding down the walls, dislodged in the wake of such a moan, and it was definitely a moan, feline or no. "God…House, you're…" All sorts of descriptors came to mind, but Wilson left them unsaid because he couldn't manage a single one of them doing this creature justice right now. Every sinew in House's body had drawn taut, every muscle tensed and quivering, begging for relief. House's ears had fallen forward, and Wilson twitched when he felt House's tail twine around his thigh just above his knee, wet and dripping from the soapy waters standing in puddles all around them.

House let forth a desperate mewl, his eyes closed as if in pain, and pressed his nose into Wilson's cheek, panting and whimpering amidst a series of helpless shudders. God, the pure want in his body, the way he weighted Wilson down and crushed him into the floor… Wilson squeezed his legs around House's hips, his heels digging into the soft flesh on either side of the base of House's tail, and pulled him down even as he canted his own hips up. House moaned again, so human, so base and needy that Wilson flushed to the roots of his hair to hear it, his whole body rumbling under the force of House's shuddering purrs.

Wilson let his fall back, cracking unnoticed against the tiles, and House writhed above him as Wilson set up a furious tempo between their bodies, holding House to him with is legs and controlling his movements by brute force. The friction, sudsy and wet and hot-slippery, cushioned by House's fur, drove Wilson to distraction, arching up as House curled at clawed at the air, his knees drawn up on either side of Wilson's hips in a fruitless search for leverage, trying to move faster than Wilson wanted him to. They rutted like animals, all of Wilson's shame burned off in a lustful frenzy, cognizant only of hard muscles and sharp, paper-thin mewls of pure want, mixed with bursts of furious purring, their bodies sliding together in a froth of shampoo that Wilson had never gotten around to rinsing out of House's fur. God, it was so good – uncivilized and desperate, hard cocks thrusting together in wild abandon –

House stiffened without warning, his breath trapped in his chest, purrs stuttering into stillness as he flushed so deeply that Wilson could see it spread across the skin of his shoulders where the fur had thinned. His paws clenched and Wilson dug his thumbs in to keep his claws clear as House bowed over him, head thrown back, mouth open in a silent howl, the tips of his canines visible past his thin, feline lips. The shaking took him then and House mewled as if he had no breath for anything louder than the softest whine. His head dropped a moment later and Wilson had to use all of his strength to keep House from drawing his arms in claw at Wilson's shoulders, jerking against him and chirping into his ear as each wave gripped him, rolled through his abdomen, sent his hips stuttering forward paws clenching blindly at each assault.

Finally, House descended into piteous hiccups, then exhausted, wrung out mowls, and then silence as he slumped against Wilson's wanting body. His arms went limp, paws lax and drooping in Wilson's grasp, tail unwinding to fall with a wet plop to the tile floor. Wilson let go of his wrists and held him close, petted his head and scrunched his ears, gently smoothing the ruffled fur down his back as House quaked in the aftermath. The soap between them cut down on the stickiness he had expected to feel, and House gradually slid off to the right, too tired to stay where he was.

Wilson tipped House over onto the tile floor, cradling House's head against his shoulder, murmuring reassurances at him that could only carry to a cat's sensitive ears above the now deafening roar of the shower. The water had finally gone tepid and though Wilson ached to find his own release, he strained to reach the faucet and shut off the shower. Silence fell all around them, broken only by the residual drips from the shower head and House's ragged little mewl-tinged purrs. Wilson's legs remained twined around House's waist, their legs hopelessly tangled together. Forlorn droplets echoed all around them as the last of the steam billowed upwards, condensed on the ceiling and then fell to patter against their exposed bodies.

Several minutes passed before House calmed enough to venture a tentative lick at Wilson's clavicle. He looked about ready to fall asleep right there, cold and wet as he was. Wilson continued to pet him until he came fully back to himself, snorted and sneezed soap bubbles right in Wilson's face, and then attacked his own unruly hair with an aim to taming all of the wild tufts that stuck up all over him. Wilson watched House's self-absorbed bid at grooming long enough to understand that he was being ignored, and then hauled himself painfully to his feet. He stumbled out of the shower without tending to himself, unwilling to admit that some stupid part of him had been hoping for reciprocation, though he had no idea how he had expected House to accomplish it.

Now that his sanity had returned, his arousal waned quickly. He peeled his pants the rest of the way off and tossed them aside, barely aware of the wet slap they made when they hit the floor, and then he tottered over to lean on the sink, no longer sure of his balance. What the hell had he just done?

Wilson had no idea how long he stood there on wobbly legs, but he caught sight of House from the corner of his eye, head peeking around the shower door, ears hanging down and still dripping. Wilson smashed his hand over his face and groaned into his fingers, then shook his head, unable to meet that innocent, curious, blue-eyed gaze.

House moved so silently that Wilson jumped when House pawed his leg. The movement startled House back, and Wilson looked up in time to catch a glimpse of House's tail disappearing back into the shower. Mortified and hating himself for pretty much everything that had happened that night, Wilson padded the few steps to the shower and peeked in to find House curled around himself near the drain, morosely licking at one of the deeper cuts on his arm. He refused to respond when Wilson called his name, and when Wilson touched the top of his head, House froze long enough to bristle and glare at him sidelong.

Right, Wilson thought; message received. He backed out of the shower and toweled himself off, then retreated to find pajamas before he gathered an armful of fresh towels and the first aid kit on his way back to the bathroom.

House had slinked out of the shower by the time Wilson came back, and he ignored Wilson's presence in favor of rubbing himself all over the bathmat and Wilson's discarded towel. Wilson tossed a dry towel over him, suppressed the urge to snicker when House flung it off, and then dared to lay a finger on House's exposed flank. House rolled onto his side and went still, head pillowed on his paws, ignoring Wilson to let him know that he was pissed at him.

"I'm an idiot," Wilson offered. When that failed to elicit a response, Wilson sighed and twisted around to sit with his back resting against House's. He picked at his fingernails for a while, then rubbed the tension from the back of his neck, just waiting for House to forgive him for starting this whole thing and then acting like a jerk afterwards. The room reeked of wet cat, but Wilson didn't mind the smell. He liked House. He liked burying his nose in House's fur when they slept, or catching a whiff of him on his clothes long after he had gone to work; it was comforting.

Eventually, House rolled away from him, and Wilson waited to see if House would take him back, or leave in a fit of spite. He couldn't even express his gratitude when House shoved his way up under Wilson's arm and wrapped himself over Wilson's lap. Wilson grabbed a clean towel and set about drying him off, fluffing him as he went. House just laid there and let him, his eyes drooping sleepily, paws curled over Wilson's knee. He didn't even stir when Wilson rummaged in his first aid kit and began cleaning the angry, reddened wounds that covered his back and arms. By the time Wilson announced that he was going to bed, House didn't hesitate to follow him and hog all of the blankets.

Halfway through the night, when Wilson woke to find House purring and grooming him with a certain intent, Wilson decided that shame served no purpose whatsoever. He laughed at the way House's tongue tickled his ear, set about licking him back, and decided that if he was going to go to hell for this, then there were worse places to be.

* * *

From then on, every time Wilson went to the bathroom, House followed to see if he intended to take a shower. If so, he lurked around the bath mat pretending to be inconspicuous until Wilson opened the shower door and let him inside. Wilson ended up with the cleanest hybrid cat in the neighborhood.

Wilson also had to find new hunker-down words, because whenever he swore now, House regarded it as an invitation.


	2. Chapter 2

Wilson held up two ties and peered at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of his bedroom door. Blue with brown stripes, or brown with blue diamonds? Unhelpful to the extreme, House slunk into the bottom corner of the reflection, probably under the mistaken impression that he was incognito with his belly slithering along the floor, and regarded the two dangly things with a purpose. Wilson only glanced down in time to see his whiskers twitch and catch the faint chirp-clicking specific to cats prowling at prey with far too much misplaced excitement oozing from their pores. Ten minutes later, Wilson went with the blue diamonds, but only because House had mangled the striped tie. That might qualify as a good deed on his part; Wilson hadn't decided yet.

"Okay," Wilson announced. He clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms, then adjusted the knot in his tie once more. Once he had satisfied himself that his hair was pretty damn good too, Wilson turned and spread his arms out. "Well? I look good, right?"

House glanced at him, but he preferred gnawing on the partially shredded silk tie to giving two craps about Wilson's appearance.

Wilson tipped his head with a tolerant, bemused smile that said he had expected nothing less. "You're too kind, House. Too kind."

House flicked an ear back and ignored him.

"Alright," Wilson sighed. He smoothed his clothes, straightening the tie yet again, and then turned to close his suitcase. "Three days, okay?" He glanced back at House, but he could never be sure if House were actually ignoring him, or just pretending to. "House. I'll be back in three days. Mrs. Whetherly will let you in and out, okay?"

House's nose twitched but he didn't react beyond that.

"You know Mrs. Whetherly," Wilson rebuked. "You even like her." Mrs. Whetherly was the sweet old lady from the first floor; she kept buying House catnip mice even though catnip didn't have any effect on hybrid cats. Wilson had tried to discourage her, but Mrs. Whetherly was half deaf and mostly blind, and completely enamored of House. It was beyond Wilson's comprehension; House tolerated her and splutter-purred for her on occasion, but that was about it. Apparently, not even a moody hybrid cat had it in him to be mean to a sweet little old lady.

House huffed into the remains of the tie and settled his chin between his paws, bored by all accounts.

"Be good for her, okay? She thinks you're a nice cat."

A snort greeted that one, but Wilson couldn't tell if House were reacting to the words or merely expressing his annoyance over the fact that Wilson was talking to him in the first place.

"Right." Wilson set his luggage on the floor and extended the handle to roll it behind him. House raised his head at that, and then followed Wilson out of the room in a flurry of concern. Over his shoulder, Wilson reminded him, "It's only three days, and I promise I won't enjoy them at all." As far as medical conferences went, this one promised to be tedious at best.

Wilson ignored the claws snagging at his pant leg as he left the apartment, House hot on his heels. He would have preferred to leave House locked inside while he was gone – it would certainly be easier for Mrs. Whetherly to come up and feed him twice a day than go outside and call him back in every night, not to mention easier on Wilson's nerves – but the one time he had tried to keep House indoors while he went to work, Wilson had come back to find his kitchen in ruins, and his recliner shredded down to its springs, its remains enthroning one supremely pissed off House. Who had also marked it as his property. Several times. Obviously, House did not approve of being a kept cat.

When Wilson crossed the sidewalk to the waiting cab, House stood beside the car door, expectant if puzzled; he knew that this was not Wilson's car, and the presence of the cabby seemed to unsettle him a little bit. Wilson cupped House's jaw in an expression of affection, but used it to nudge House backward until he had to either move, or fall over. "No, House."

House sat back on his haunches and stared at him, oblivious to the cab driver, who eyed them both as he loaded Wilson's luggage into the trunk.

"I told you," Wilson said sharply. "You're staying here. Mrs. Whetherly will look after you."

When Wilson opened the cab door, House gave him a disbelieving look and tried to climb in before him.

Wilson grabbed him under the arms and forced him back more roughly than he would have liked. "House, no. You're not coming with me."

House became dead weight in Wilson's grasp, but when Wilson let him slither to the ground, House twisted unexpectedly and tried again to dart into the open car.

"No!" Wilson hauled him back, and then dragged him to the front stoop of their apartment building. He shoved House down to sit on the steps and then held him in place by the shoulders when he struggled to get free. Oddly enough, there was no hissing involved; Wilson wondered at the silent defiance, but didn't linger on it. "House, stay. You cannot come with me. I know it's Saturday, I know I'm supposed to take you on errands with me, but I have to go to Montreal, and you can't come. I told you at the beginning of the week, remember?"

Wilson withdrew but had to plant his feet and shove House back yet again. This time, House stayed put, but the look on his face tempted Wilson to beg off of the conference. He pushed House's shoulder once more for good measure and then turned his back.

The cabby appeared uninterested in the miniature drama, but Wilson caught the tightness of his features, that transparent cover for disgust. Great; the idiot was probably a purist. That was all Wilson needed. "Airport, please."

"That thing yours?"

Wilson did his best not to glare at the back of the guy's head. "Hardly," he replied. Which was true – House didn't _belong_ to him, per se – but the cabby took it as he chose and grunted in approval.

As the cab pulled away from the curb, Wilson glanced out the window in time to see House push himself up precariously on his hind legs like a person, hand-paws braced on the concrete railing of the front entrance. He peered after the cab as if he couldn't understand what had just happened. Wilson lost sight of him a few seconds later when they turned the corner.

* * *

The conference wasn't quite as boring as Wilson expected. First off, there was the paper that some oncologist from Los Angeles gave on cancer presentation in hybrid species, which Wilson had not been expecting. Halfway through, when Wilson realized that the man's experiments had not involved hybrids that naturally acquired cancerous lesions, but animals that he had _given_ cancer to, Wilson left. Then, later that night, the PITA people had shown up – god, those guys were everywhere nowadays – to protest the cancer research, and Wilson had spent a rather entertaining hour on the balcony of his hotel suite, watching them harass various doctors as they came and went.

For no good reason other than lack of mental stimulation, and perhaps loneliness, Wilson sauntered downstairs around sunset, and when the PITA people accosted him too, he whipped out his Blackberry and showed them all pictures of House. Of course, being who he was, Wilson magically found himself with a date about ten minutes later, and pretending to be a full-fledged vegan for one night did have its advantages. He found himself craving tuna salad, though, and told himself that it had nothing to do with Saturday being grilled tuna night for House.

All in all, he ended up having a decent time, and when he disembarked back in New Jersey on Monday night, he felt oddly relaxed. It was late enough that House should have been inside by now, probably sharpening his claws on something he shouldn't. Wilson was looking forward to not caring if he had destroyed anything, at least until tomorrow; he wanted to dump his suitcase in a corner and curl up on the couch to be purred all over.

Wilson pushed through the apartment door, weighed down by his briefcase and dragging his luggage behind him, then stopped. "House?" He set his things down and took a few more steps, his eyes roving over the immaculate apartment. It was far too quiet.

"Doctor Wilson?"

Wilson jumped into the wall and then exhaled in relief. "Oh god. Mrs. Whetherly, I didn't even hear you come upstairs."

Mrs. Whetherly didn't waste any time on apologies. "I tried to call you, but I must have written your phone number down wrong."

It was staggering, how quickly Wilson's insides knotted. "Why? What happened? Where is he?" A memory flooded behind his eyes, of coming home from the hospital to find that House had been struck by a car – the official story had been an accidental hit and run, not that hitting an _animal_ was cause for a manhunt, but a bystander kept insisting that House had been run down deliberately. Police cars had been flashing in front of the apartment building, but no one had been doing anything to help. Wilson had – thank god – arrived in time to stop the police officers from shooting House in a misguided bid to end his misery, as if he were just a deer thrashing around at the side of the interstate. Aside from letting Wilson have his way, however, they had done nothing. Hospitals didn't treat animals, they had told him. Who had he expected them to call? All of this while House howled in the middle of the road and tried to curl around his broken leg.

"I don't know, dear." Mrs. Whetherly laid a hand on Wilson's shoulder, the gesture maternal in spite of her being nearly two feet shorter than he was, startling Wilson from his unpleasant thoughts. "Everything seemed fine Saturday. He came home at dinner time and I let him in and gave him one of the meals you left in the fridge. He wouldn't eat it, but I didn't worry; my little Sasser used to fast whenever my husband was away, you know."

Sasser, Wilson already knew, was the dog she had owned when she had first gotten married; it had died over forty years ago, and her husband had been gone for nearly as long. And of course House hadn't eaten it – Wilson had _told_ her that she had to take a bite in front of him, or he wouldn't trust it. Like monkeys and red berries in the wild. Wilson held his tongue, though; he could hardly justify berating an old lady after the damage had already been done.

"Anyway, I heard him moving around all night – pacing, I suppose – but he seemed fine again in the morning when I let him back out."

Wilson fought for a modicum of patience and bit out, "Mrs. Whetherly. What happened?"

Mrs. Whetherly wrung her hands and then whispered, "He didn't come back Sunday. I went out and called for him, but you know how he is. I thought he'd show up in the morning. He's stayed out all night before."

Wilson was already grabbing his coat and keys. "I have to go."

"I tried to call you – "

"Thank you," Wilson called without looking back. It was stupid to thank her under the circumstances, but what the hell else was he supposed to say?

"Doctor Wilson – "

"I have to go. Good night. I'm – I'll find him. It's fine; I'm sure he's fine." He stabbed at the elevator button and shrugged his coat back on, keys jangling.

Mrs. Whetherly barely moved fast enough to follow him into the elevator. "Here. I found it in the alley by the dumpsters."

Wilson blinked a few times before his eyes focused on the fuzzy red and gray lacrosse ball. House took that thing everywhere. Wilson rarely actually saw him with it, but it seemed that whenever House got bored, the ball appeared, no matter where they were.

Mrs. Whetherly held it out to him and Wilson let her tip it into his hand. "Those brutes have been skulking around the neighborhood again. Genie warned me last week."

"What brutes?" Wilson fingered the ball and swallowed.

"The _purists_, Doctor." She practically hissed the word, like a curse. "You know."

Wilson nodded, sick to stomach. "Yeah, I know." He vividly recalled the night House had shown up bitten and scratched over a month ago; the implication of what must have happened that day stood further out in his mind than the dubious activity they had engaged in together in the shower. They had groomed each other repeatedly since then, but never with similar results. And House had stayed closer to home after that than was normal for him.

Mrs. Whetherly gently grasped Wilson's hands where they clenched House's ball. "He's smart. I'm sure he's holed up somewhere safe."

Wilson nodded, but no one could have mistaken him for reassured. "I should have taken him with me."

"Oh, how, dear? You know the hotel wouldn't have let you bring him inside."

Wilson flared his nostrils as the elevator dinged its arrival on the ground floor. He could imagine House pacing the apartment Saturday night, all night long, looking for him in every room over and over again. Yes, House could have been run off by a gang of idiot genetic purists, but Wilson couldn't shake the picture House had struck, standing up on the front stoop, his bad leg probably killing him at being made to take so much of his weight as he stared after Wilson's departing cab.

"Go on," Mrs. Whetherly enjoined, once again jolting him from his thoughts. She shooed him out into the hallway. "Go find him."

"Yeah," Wilson agreed numbly. "I will."

Wilson drove for hours, until a blaze of pink colored the eastern sky around the silhouettes of the buildings he passed, every window of his Volvo rolled down, driving ten miles per hour and calling House's name. At noon, he returned home alone.

* * *

A horrible week passed, and whenever one of Wilson's coworkers asked him what was wrong, he told them that his roommate had disappeared. He talked about House all the time, so Wilson didn't have to hide much of anything. The fact that most of them assumed him to be Wilson's human friend was of no consequence. Every night, Wilson drove or walked into the wee hours of the morning, visiting and revisiting every alley and park that he had ever known House to haunt.

After eight days, Wilson took to scouring the police blotters to see if anyone had discovered the body of a hybrid; those things usually made the papers. He called around to hospitals and morgues in spite of their vehement insistence that they did not handle hybrids, and when that yielded nothing, Wilson moved on to veterinarians. By day nine, Wilson found himself stopping to examine dumpsters and refuse heaps – he even pulled over on the interstate because a pile of road kill had the right color fur. It turned out to be a dog – a shepherd, probably – but when Wilson climbed back into his car, his nerves were already shot. He told himself that getting so upset over a sometimes-pet made no sense, and then he found a bar to get sloshed in. When the bartender asked why he seemed so bent on polluting himself, Wilson replied that he'd lost his House and then giggled hysterically when the bartender cursed the plunging real estate market.

Two weeks in, Wilson made himself realize that House was probably gone for good. In three weeks, he allowed himself to wonder if House were dead, and then he slept with all of House's toys piled on the bed beside him.

Three and a half weeks after the conference, Wilson stopped going out to look for him.

After a month, he threw out all of House's toys, but by the time trash day rolled around, he ran out to the dumpster at three in the morning in his pajamas and slippers to get the lacrosse ball back because he could only imagine the look on House's face if he ever found out that Wilson had thrown it away.

The blankets on the bed and the pillows on the couch only smelled like Wilson now.

It was the not-knowing that was slowly killing him.

* * *

"Did you ever find out what happened to House?"

Wilson glanced across the table at Cuddy, then went back to picking over his salad. It was beautiful outside – springy and cool, though a little too wet for his tastes. A few patches of snow still lingered in the shadows of the campus grounds. "No," he replied flatly.

He had thought that his tone carried enough warning to make her back off, but Cuddy pressed, "The police don't have _any_ leads?"

"The police aren't looking for him." Wilson dropped his fork into the lettuce and closed the plastic lid of his salad container. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Why aren't they looking for him? Didn't you file a missing person's report?"

Wilson rubbed his temples and then slid a hand around to knead the back of his neck, his eyes trained on nothing in the distance past Cuddy's left shoulder. "You don't get it," he muttered.

"Get what?" Cuddy leaned forward a few inches, as if he would listen better that way. "The way you talk about him, I figured he was a little…you know. Slow? I mean, it's not like you ever say it, but it's kind of obvious you're his caretaker. The police usually stay on top of cases like that."

Wilson stared past her while he worked out what she meant, and then he canted his head and fixed her with a hard stare. "You think that House is my retarded ward?"

"I never said retarded," Cuddy replied quickly, her hands held up to ward off the un-politically correct word. "I said he was – "

"Fuck you." Wilson shoved his chair back.

"James, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have – "

Wilson spun back toward her, index finger stabbed in her direction; boss or no, she'd crossed a forbidden line for him. "He's not the least bit _slow_. He's incredibly intelligent, and playful, and happy – he's always so…so _innocent_, but he can be so protective, and – and he makes me laugh – the way he moves, you'd never realize he has a bum leg – and he's – " Wilson could hear his own voice disintegrating, but the words were already there, so he just kept going. "He's so soft, and when he's sleeping, he smells like – like _him_, and – "

"Oh… Oh my god. James." Cuddy shoved to her feet and rushed around the table to ease him back into his chair when he started to crumple. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize. I'm so sorry." She sat next to him and hugged him, awkward affair that it was. Wilson sat stiffly in her arms and all but gouged his eyes with the napkin he used to stop the tears from coming.

He had no idea what she was going on about, but it didn't make much difference. Once he'd collected himself enough to be able to find his way back to his office, he disentangled his arms and stalked off without acknowledging her apology, leaving the remainder of his uneaten lunch behind. It took him an hour to realize that Cuddy now thought he was gay and that House was the lover who ran out on him. He broke his desk lamp about two seconds later because while technically inaccurate, her assumptions bore an undercurrent of truth. Wilson did love him, and he was gone.

* * *

Wilson left the office early that day, concentration shot to hell. His assistant almost moved to stop him on his way out, but apparently, his glare made her think better of it. He drove through the streets on auto pilot, and after he pulled into a parking space in front of his apartment, he just sat there with the engine idling for a while. It shouldn't hurt this much. A month had passed; he should be over it by now. He shouldn't be able to feel his sinuses fill every time someone mentioned House's name; he shouldn't still be stopping at the side of the road every time he passed a dead animal with fur close to the same color.

Wilson switched the car off with a long, shuddering sigh, gathered his things off the passenger seat, and then groaned on his way to the sidewalk. His keys jangled as he shook free the one to the foyer door, and he had to kick some piece of trash off the top step. A scrap of cloth, he noticed. Striped cloth. Wilson jiggled the lock and then shouldered the door open, too weary to care that he smudged his jacket in the process. In front of the mailboxes, he suddenly froze, and then he dropped everything in his arms without any sort of caution. Some other tenant looked at him as if he were crazy, but Wilson was too busy scrambling back outside to care. He grabbed the scrap of filthy silk off of the stoop and ran it between his fingers – blue and brown strips, snagged and torn.

Wilson hardly dared to breathe. "House." He straightened and hopped down the stairs, eyes scanning left and right. "House? _House_!"

"Doctor Wilson?"

"Yes!" Wilson whirled around, fumbling in his pocket for his Blackberry as he went. He didn't bother with a greeting, merely keyed up his photo album and thrust the phone under the woman's nose, no matter who she was. "I'm looking for my – for – " _My cat? My best friend, my…_ Wilson paused and actually looked at the woman. "Wait. Don't I know you?"

The woman arched an eyebrow, but the sense of irony she exuded by the gesture stalled. "We met at a medical conference…" She rolled her hands in the air and prompted, "That moron with his cancer research, and you doing a decent job of faking vegan…"

Wilson pointed the Blackberry at her. "PITA girl!" Then he balked. "Oh my god. What are you – not important." He held his hands up and shook his head, backing up as he did so. "House – my cat, the big – never mind. You know already. He's been missing, and I found this on the stairs…" Wilson wagged the mangled tie in the air, somehow gesturing with it at the stoop. "He was here!" An hysterical laugh dribbled out between the halted speech. "Today, he was here – I need to find him."

An inscrutable expression passed over the woman's face. "They already took him."

Wilson merely stared, his whole face stuttering as he tried to process that lacking explanation.

The woman's eyebrows inched upwards again. "Animal control. Someone called to complain that a hybrid was menacing people on this block, and they came for him."

It just didn't compute. "They…took him – took him _where_? House doesn't menace people; he was waiting for me – he came back – "

"A friend in the system contacted me when the original call came through. That's why I'm here." She appeared apologetic as she admitted, "You raised some red flags when we met. We sort of watch people who claim to keep hybrids as pets, and – "

Wilson practically spit, "House is not a _pet_."

"I know." PITA girl bobbed her head in agreement. "But we wanted to make sure, and – "

"What were you planning to do?" Wilson demanded, incensed and worried; he needed an outlet and this nosy little animal rights freak was the only target available. "Kidnap him if I didn't feed him the right brand of food, and release him in the wild? You're – "

" – not the enemy! Doctor Wilson, I swear, we're on the same side." She paused for a beat. "And incidentally, I don't think you're the sort to try and feed Kibble to a creature that's eighty-five percent genetically human."

Wilson gaped, then exploded, "_Where is he_?!"

The woman drew a calming breath; Wilson could tell he was trying her patience. "The pound."

The pound. That was just across town. He could have House back in an hour.

As if she could read his mind, the woman shook her head and said, "It's not that easy." She crossed her arms and wandered a few steps while Wilson peered wildly around, willing House to just appear, willing it to be morning, willing himself late for work… "Doctor Wilson, we've pretty much been keeping an eye on you since you got back from the conference. The way you reacted when you found out he was gone… It's obvious you care for him a lot. We've been looking too, only because he's not a wild hybrid and he probably couldn't survive very long on his own." She hesitated and her voice dropped into a darker register. "It broke my heart when they told me you were trolling the interstate for road kill. I can't even imagine…"

Wilson sank down on the apartment steps, his legs suddenly nerveless. "I can get him back, right?" He looked up at her, imploring her to have the answer he wanted. "It's not his fault he got caught. He thought I abandoned him. That's why he didn't come back. He knows words, but he doesn't understand abstract things. I thought…I tell him my work schedule every week, so he knows what days I have off, and he knows which ones those are. He wakes me up earlier than normal because he knows he gets to run errands with me, or drive out to the beach…" Wilson looked down and found himself pressing the shredded tie to his face, and god…he'd almost forgotten what House smelled like. "I thought he understood," Wilson choked out, his chest hitching. "I thought he knew I'd be back Monday, but he didn't. He thinks I left him."

From somewhere in front of him, the woman told him softly, "They don't let people adopt the hybrids they get in. If no one from the government research labs wants them, they're…they're put down."

Wilson started shaking his head, peripherally aware that the rest of him was shaking too. "No," he moaned. He didn't know which was worse – House dead, or House back at a facility. Wilson already knew that House was first gen – a test-tube hybrid, one of the first batches, branded with a logo like cereal boxes. And he swore that when House howled and struggled in his sleep, he was dreaming of that place. "He'd be better off dead. If I had to, I'd kill him myself to keep them from taking him back there." This woman was PITA; she'd understand him saying that.

Her face took on a practiced scrutiny, to which she subjected an increasingly distraught Wilson for nearly half a minute. Then she snorted as if she couldn't believe she was actually looking at him. "You're the real thing, aren't you." She wasn't asking a question, merely musing out loud. "You love him. You actually consider him a friend – a _person_."

Wilson tried to look stern and disapproving of her annoyingly self-serving rhetoric, but he could feel himself failing to maintain the expression. With a weary sigh, he looked down at his hands and picked at a few dirt stains from where he had scrabbled about on the stoop. It took a while, but Wilson eventually managed to nod and croak out a thoroughly reluctant, "Yeah. Even when he pees on my stuff. I usually deserve it anyway."

It came as no surprise that she laughed at that, but the tinkle of sound grated on Wilson's nerves; this was no time for laughter. House was locked up in some pound, about to either be euthanized or imprisoned somewhere far worse. It hurt more than he wanted to admit; now that he knew that House was alive, somehow the urgency pierced even deeper than when he had feared the big cat dead.

A hand appeared on Wilson's shoulder, squeezing gently. "How far are you willing to go, Doctor Wilson?"

Wilson stopped rocking and lifted his eyes to meet hers. "Anything. Please. Just tell me what I need to do."

* * *

The people she took him to meet two days later – and her name was Janice; he remembered that somewhere between his apartment and the pound – these people looked like terrorists. They were American, obviously, but they dressed all in black and carried ski masks in their pockets, and some of them had tasers and guns strapped into hip holsters. Not to mention the guy with the tool belt, and the other guy with a breast pocket full of sedative darts to load the tranquilizer rifle he kept religiously polishing, and the _other_ other guy with the cyber-age lock picking kit…animal rights militants. It was slightly terrifying, tagging along with this lot. Like National Geographic meets Jack Bauer.

"Here we are," Janice told him from her seat beside him in the back of the van.

There were no seats aside from the two in front, and Wilson was huddled on the floor by the rear doors, gripping a strap to keep himself from being thrown around each time their driver – the one with the taser – took a corner.

Wilson nodded and focused on settling the churning in his stomach. He was about two minutes away from becoming a criminal. It was the fact that he didn't mind that had his insides tied up in knots. All he wanted was House, back home and safe. He didn't care how anymore. The past two days, which he had been told to spend acting as if nothing were the matter, had been next to impossible; he'd been forced to take vacation time and plead the flu because he couldn't even focus on opening email. Cuddy seemed to consider it a grieving leave after the scene he had made to her, and let him be about it. A second later, he felt compelled to ask, "You guys have done this before, right? I mean, it's not gonna be like amateur night at the comedy club?"

The guy in the front passenger seat – the black guy with the lock picks – chuckled with a sort of arrogant if self-deprecating mirth. It was an odd combination. "Yeah, we got experience."

Janice added more soberly, "Foreman's the best we have for search and rescue."

Wilson glanced at Foreman and then cast Janice a dubious look as the van glided to a relatively gentle stop, considering that the majority of their ride had been anything but. "How so?"

"B-and-E and car jacking," Foreman replied. The pride in his voice came mingled with some subtle brand of shame, however. "These guys got to me right after I left juvie."

"We recruit certain sorts of talent," Janice explained. "I'm sure you can understand."

Wilson raised an eyebrow but offered no opinion on that. If he alienated these people, House would be the one to pay for it, not him. Janice had already informed him that House was slated for euthanization, and PITA wasn't prepared to endorse a felony unless Wilson really wanted House back. The price for Wilson wasn't even that high; they had only requested prescriptions for antibiotics and such, probably to be used to treat their own members when they couldn't afford the suspicion raised by visiting an emergency room. Wilson didn't really care what they did with the medications, and if he were ever confronted about writing the scripts, he would simply have to lie.

They didn't leave the van right away, parked inconspicuously as it was in a dark corner of the shelter parking lot, blending into a row of similar vans that all bore the emblem of the city pound. Foreman and tranquilizer-gun-man crowded around the windows in the rear doors, waiting for the night staff leave. Once they left, one of the guys would go out and cut power to the building, at which point they would have about fifteen minutes to get to House before the alarm company sent someone to investigate the outage. Janice had explained all of this to Wilson as they drove around picking up crew members, but it didn't stop him itching at the need to wait even longer to get his hands on House.

After what seemed like hours, Foreman perked up and nodded back at them to indicate that the night staff was on its way out. Shortly thereafter, several car engines roared to life on the other side of the parking lot and they all waited in varying degrees of agitation for the sounds to die away. Taser Man went back up front and started the van as the guy with the tool belt – an electrician, perhaps – ducked out the back and made for the telephone pole a few feet away. Wilson poked his head out the open rear door to watch him scale a chain link fence and reach up to grab the first wrung on the pole. Janice pulled him back inside as the guy shimmied up out of sight, and as soon as the animal shelter went dark, Taser Man backed the van right up to the rear entrance. The countdown was on.

Wilson exited the van first, but only because he was overeager and fraught with nerves, and happened to be sitting right against the doors. He fidgeted and combed hands through his hair to grip savagely at the back of his neck while Foreman went about picking the locks, wishing vaguely for a weapon, or the ability to kick down steel doors. Finally, the door swung open, and Wilson crowded into the shelter on Foreman's heels, a few of the other guys slipping past him to scout about as he wondered where they were holding House.

"Let's try big dogs," Janice suggested, pointing down a hallway adorned with an overly cheerful mural combining rainbows with kittens and puppies, highlighted by the stylized renderings of sycophantic children fawning all over them. It was nearly enough to make Wilson go into sugar shock.

The troupe moved quickly down the hall and Foreman had to kneel once again at the door with the reinforced plexiglass window to ply his singular trade with his picks. One of the men announced the four minute mark and Foreman told him to fuck off just as the lock gave way. Wilson stepped right over him without a word of apology for knocking him sideways, and shot off down the first aisle on legs that he refused to acknowledge as wobbly. Captive dogs lifted their heads and whined as he passed; some even barked or jumped at the bars. Wilson ignored them all and rounded to come up the second aisle. He was brought up short when the electrician hissed and pointed from the end of the furthest aisle.

Wilson ran over, lungs in his throat, and shoved past him. Flashlights did little to illuminate the gloom, and at first Wilson thought that the man must have been mistaken to identify the creature in the big cage as House. He looked like a lumpy pile of mangy fur all tangled up in the corner, unmoving except for the shallow, arrhythmic expansion of his ribcage as he breathed. The shock wore off an instant later and Wilson tore the latches open, collapsing on his way in to grab the first arm that he saw. House didn't wake when Wilson rolled him over.

"Drugged," Foreman announced.

Wilson glanced over his shoulder to find him examining the bowl of cheap pet food sitting just inside the door, picked over but at least partially eaten. "They were probably afraid he'd manage to escape. He can open just about anything."

As Wilson turned back to paw at House's whiskery cheeks and shake him, he heard the clang and scatter of kibble as Foreman flung it somewhere in disgust. "We have to go."

Wilson nodded, but he couldn't seem to move. House was filthy, and he'd lost so much weight that Wilson could see ribs protruding from under the soft if matted fur of his belly. For no real reason, Wilson announced, "He's covered in fleas." Then he clapped his hand over his mouth and tried not to be sick as he crumpled over House's limp body. He could see them in the high beam of his flashlight, scores of tiny bugs crawling over House's shoulder and around his ears to find warm shadows.

Janice grabbed his shoulder and tugged him upright. Wilson dragged House's upper body with him. "We have to go," she insisted, voice laced with urgency. "Ten minute mark."

Wilson nodded with no actual idea of what he was doing and allowed one of the other men to help him get House up off the floor. He was light enough that Wilson could carry him all by himself, though under protest from his touchy lumbar muscles. They made it out of the building and into the van without incident, and Taser Guy had them headed for the street before Janice had even gotten the doors closed.

Foreman kept watch out the back windows, and a few seconds after they turned out of the parking lot, he whistled. "There they are. Alarm guys." He paused, perhaps to check his watch, and then griped, "Four minutes early. We're gonna have to adjust our estimates next time."

Taser Guy pressed harder on the gas pedal and Wilson gripped House's heavy frame to his chest, too stunned to be relieved. He accepted the scratchy wool blanket that Janice held out to him and wrapped it around House's pitifully thin frame in an effort to stem the shivers set up by the cool night air. When they finally climbed the on-ramp and merged onto the interstate, Wilson sagged against the side panel and expelled a breath that he had been holding for over a month now. He didn't care that he could feel the fleas venturing onto himself, even though it turned his stomach just a little; he had no desire to let go, even for that.

They were halfway home when House began to stir in Wilson's arms, and he tucked House up against his chest so that when he woke, the first thing he would notice was Wilson's scent. A clatter over on the other side of the van drew Wilson's gaze for a moment, and he stiffened violently to find the electrician preparing a hypodermic. "That's not necessary."

The electrician eyed him with obvious distrust. "Look, I know you think he's tame, but – "

"He _is_ tame!" Wilson shouted. The clap of his voice caused a few of them to wince as it rebounded in the confined space of the van. House shifted a bit and mewled, but he couldn't pry his eyes open yet.

"With you, maybe," the electrician shot back heatedly. "He doesn't know us, and I have no intention of getting mauled for my good deed."

Wilson puffed up, his shoulders hunched around his ears in unconscious imitation of House's most intimidating pose. "If you touch him with that thing, I swear to god I'll hurt you."

Janice laid a hand on the electrician's arm to push the needle down from where he'd been holding it as if it were a weapon to stab someone with. "If we have to, we'll shoot him with the tranq gun, okay?"

The man holding said weapon twisted around in the front seat upon hearing this, then eyed Wilson and the big cat mewling in his grasp. "Just say the word."

Wilson glared daggers, but he couldn't sustain it because House chose that moment to twitch and paw at him as if trying to push him off. "Hey," Wilson cooed, his attention completely focused on House now. "It's me. It's just me."

House twisted feebly in his arms and then emitted a soft, breathless howl, his eyelids still too heavy and gummy for him to open.

"You're safe," Wilson whispered, his lips pressed to House's ear in spite of the infestation. "I'm taking you home. You're safe now."

House coughed weakly against Wilson's chest and then noticed the scent of the man restraining him. He began sniffing earnestly at Wilson's sweatshirt, an irregular series of inquisitive if frightened sounds welling up from deep within House's chest.

"That's right," Wilson encouraged, tightening his grasp to keep House as close as possible. "It's me. You know me."

Some sort of pained noise gurgled in the back of House's throat, and then Wilson caught a glimpse of liquid blue peering up at him as they passed under a light pole.

Wilson grinned, even if the laugh he attempted came out rather strangled and wet. "Miss me?"

House went still and merely stared at him, expression blank and devoid of recognition.

Wilson's smile faded so quickly that he could feel the sudden pit yawn in his stomach as an aching burn. "House…"

House blinked at him in a second blaze of blue reflecting the light they passed beneath, and then he planted his face in Wilson's chest with a long, keening sigh.

The moment of recognition was sweet enough in its own right, but it was the staggered attempt to purr that finally broke Wilson's composure. He folded over House and probably crushed him a bit, if the wheeze of escaping air were anything to go by. "I'm sorry," he wailed into the patchy fur, his voice little more than a mournful whisper. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I thought you understood, I'll never do it again…" He rocked back and forth, mindless of his own dignity or the fact that he had an audience as he repeated himself over and over again. He needed to say it – he needed too badly for House to know it.

House groaned in some sort of discomfort, and then the purring ratcheted up in volume. Wilson could tell that it was forced for his benefit – that House didn't actually feel contentment or pleasure right now – but he didn't care. He hardly felt the paw slip up to curl around the back of his head, holding his freely running nose down in the crook of House's neck, fleas be damned, or the arm that wrapped around his flank and over his shoulder until House was squeezing him back with what little strength he could muster. The purring petered out quickly, probably because it was too draining to maintain, but in its absence, Wilson could hear the softer, gravelly sorts of sounds that he was making, a low rumble that percolated in his throat, as if he were murmuring reassuring things under his breath, for Wilson's ears only, in whatever language House was capable of. Coos and grumbles vibrated against Wilson's collarbone where House's throat was pressed, interspersed with gentle chirrups and a few faint meows. An uncoordinated tongue started licking his face a moment later, sandpapering off the salty moisture staining Wilson's cheeks – or the one within his reach, anyway.

When Wilson realized what was happening, his throat closed up and he choked for a moment before he could manage a deep, shuddering breath. And then another. There it was – the old familiar scent of him, hidden beneath god-knew how many layers of accumulated grime and the fouler scent of captivity and ammonia from the pound. House tried to purr again for him, tightening his grip on Wilson as if alarmed by Wilson's reaction, but he sounded and felt like a dying lawnmower engine. As if he knew it, House switched to kneading at him instead, a hint of prickly claws in Wilson's scalp and between his shoulder blades, and Wilson mustered himself enough to tell House that he was okay. House made some sound of assent or agreement, and went back to simply holding him.

"Hell," the electrician muttered, his voice colored in awe. "I ain't never seen the like of that before."

House started at the unexpected voice and his arms tightened around Wilson as he roused himself to glance at his surroundings. Wilson lifted his head too, but only to give the electrician a baleful look that, from Wilson's perspective, left the man streaked and blurred. Upon finding so many strangers watching them, House emitted a feeble, uncertain hiss and twisted to huddle back against Wilson.

A current of tension seemed to run like electricity through the PITA brigade, but Wilson murmured something about them being friends, and House subsided with nothing more than an irritated growl. A moment later, he affected not to notice them at all and began scratching at himself – arms first, then belly, and then he clawed at his ears with a fair amount of agitation.

Wilson spent the remainder of the drive trying to keep House from scratching himself silly as his faculties returned in the wake of the drugs he'd been fed, and by the time the van pulled up in front of Wilson's apartment, House was complaining loudly and biting his own tail in spite of Wilson's attempts to calm him. Wilson almost regretted making such a scene about the sedative, because he was starting to reconsider it simply to save House the discomfort. At least the patchiness of his fur and the tender, nearly raw patches of skin that bordered on lesionous could be explained as nothing more serious than the side effect of scratching at parasites. Wilson spared a moment of thanks for the fact that House no longer had any issue with the walk-in shower, because they would both need a flea bath before they could get any rest.

Foreman climbed out the front and came around the van to open the rear door for Wilson, who had his arms full at the moment. Between them, they got House out, and Wilson supported most of his weight on the way inside because not only was House squirming on his feet at the terrible itchiness pervading his entire being, but the drugs had left a residual weakness in him that left him unable to even walk on all fours as he was wont to do with his right leg being what it was. Wilson dragged House into the elevator and let him crumple on the floor as they rode up, squawking and spitting about his supreme discomfort the whole time.

Once the elevator creaked to a halt, Foreman took Wilson's apartment keys so that Wilson himself could gather House upright as much as possible and haul him straight into the bathroom. He deposited House in the shower and turned around with the intention of thanking Foreman for his help, since he had heard the man following them down the hall, and found himself face-to-face with a huge bottle of flea shampoo.

Wilson grimaced and accepted the gift with a nod of wry thanks. "Look," Wilson started. "I just wanted to thank you – "

"I don't like hybrids," Foreman cut in sharply. Wilson balked but before he could ask the inevitable question, Foreman continued. "The breeding programs are wrong, and they should be shut down. That's why I'm with PITA – I don't like the way we're playing God, or that people think it's okay to mistreat them just because they're a _created_ species and the property of whoever made them. They're not _property_. They're sentient, and they should be treated that way. But they shouldn't exist in the first place."

Wilson blinked a few times and then shrugged. "Um. Okay."

Foreman jerked his head down in a nod, and then softened just enough that Wilson could see it. "Take _good_ care of him this time."

Wilson bristled, but in his own mind, wracked with guilt as it still was, he hardly had room to protest the scolding tone that Foreman had just taken with him. His voice nonetheless tight, Wilson promised, "I will." Then he considered a moment before tacking his original, "Thank you," back onto the end of that.

"Sure," Foreman replied. He gazed past Wilson's shoulder for a moment, into the bathroom where Wilson could hear House rubbing himself against any available surface in search of a modicum of relief. "That's, um…" His chin jutted in House's direction, and then Foreman mumbled, "…special. What you've got there." Then he made a few additional nervous gestures as if he needed to negate what he'd said, and took his leave without another word.

Wilson listened to the front door close behind Foreman, then took what felt like the first deep breath he'd managed since Mrs. Whetherly had handed him House's lacrosse ball. Behind him in the bathroom, House stopped his frantic squirming all over the place and took up an angry, impatient yowling no doubt directed at Wilson to tell him to get his ass in there and wash the itchies off.

Against his better judgment – since he knew that it would only further antagonize House – Wilson grinned and backed into the bathroom with his industrial-sized bottle of flea shampoo. House complained in the most strenuous tones for the next hour, after which he finally fell into an exhausted if fitful doze under the warm shower spray with Wilson still combing the mats and dead fleas from his fur.


	3. Chapter 3

Wilson was 32 the first time he saw the little hybrid kitten.

That particular August had been mild, and rather than the usual stifling heat, a pleasant warmth hugged the ground as the sun sank behind buildings and trees. He had seen Danny that morning on his way to the grocery store, but he hadn't been able to pull off the road and turn around fast enough to catch up to him. Now, the past day seemed a blur of driving in circles and poking about between buildings, calling Danny's name to no avail. He had ditched his car in front of his apartment building over an hour ago, but he hadn't been able to settle down since then. A quick walk to the park sounded like a good idea.

Wilson noticed the kitten immediately. It sat near the pole of the swing set, front paws wrapped around the metal. Old weathered paint in flecks of green and red had chipped off and caught in the black-grey fur of his front legs and chest. He wasn't striped like a tabby, but salted all over with grey like the hair of a middle aged man. Wilson watched him for a moment, startled. He knew from news reports that a militant animal rights group had released thousands of hybrid animals in a raid on the laboratories near his borough, but it hadn't honestly occurred to him what that meant.

Wilson wasn't the only one who had noticed the little cat sitting there. A boy of perhaps four or five years, too young to be out alone at this time of night in a neighborhood like this, stood talking to the kitten as if it could understand him, the way children talked to everything, sentient or not. The two young things were about the same size, though Wilson knew from the genetics journals that the kitten couldn't be more than six months old. As for intelligence, the reports varied, but there was a general consensus that while the hybrids were _intelligent_, it was the same sort of intelligence found in parrots and circus animals: Mimicry and tricks. The boy kept talking to it though, oblivious, evidently about something of great importance in his mind. Then he turned around and ran at one of the swings. Wilson watched as he threw himself stomach-first at the swing seat and let the momentum carry him forward, his feet flying off the ground. He reached the apex of his trip upward and swung back down, then up the other way, head dangling over the ground, shrieking with laughter.

The little kitten watched him too, furry head bobbing up and down, back and forth at the swinging boy. It took another repetition of this series of events for Wilson to realize that the boy was trying to teach the kitten how to play on a swing.

The sun sank lower as the boy played and laughed and talked to the kitten, patting its shoulder and occasionally trying to pull it over to try the game for itself. Eventually, he gave up, tagged the kitten "it," and took off running across the wood chips covering the playground. The kitten twisted around to watch him and then bolted after him on all fours, up onto the big play gym. The boy squealed as he ran and jumped about the platforms with the kitten hot on his heels.

Eventually, Wilson looked away and noticed that street lights had replaced the sun's waning glow. The boy must have been out without permission, and it was dangerous this late at night. Surely, his parents were frantic to find him by now. Wilson took out his cell phone, intending to call the police to come take the boy and return him to wherever he belonged, but a pair of harried adults appeared before he finished dialing. The boy ran over to them, pointing at his new friend and telling the story of his adventures with the kind of exhilaration that only children can ever show. The mother interrupted by snatching him up with a series of scolding remarks, crying and remonstrating all at once, and left the playground after tossing a pointed look at her husband.

Wife and son gone, the husband regarded the little kitten sat quietly on the mat beside the corkscrew slide. Wilson watched from his bench as the man bent down to pick up a large, sturdy stick, and it occurred to him that the man meant to bludgeon the little thing right there on the playground, in the same place where his son had just been playing. There were no laws against it. The hybrids were not considered animals due to their DNA consisting 85% of human material, so animal cruelty laws didn't apply. And they weren't human, so there could be no such crime as assaulting or murdering one. It was a sad loophole, and a gaping one, but Wilson could hardly change that.

The kitten just sat there as the man approached, up on its haunches and scenting the air as if in greeting. It didn't realize it was in danger until the first blow caught its ribs on the left side. A sickening flurry of howls and scrabbling followed, and then the kitten streaked away under the playground equipment and disappeared into the dark. The man peered after it, probably to see if it were still lurking somewhere close enough to catch and finish off, but it was gone. He huffed in disappointment, dropped the stick, and left to go home to his family.

Wilson sat on his bench, stunned, and watched the man walk away. Everyone knew that the hybrid cats could be dangerous, especially the ones born in labs that had never been exposed to the wild, but that thing had only been a kitten. Wilson could understand avoiding it – it _was_ a wild animal – but surely killing it was unnecessary. It hadn't hurt that boy; it hadn't even tried. They had been _playing_.

Halfway home, Wilson stopped dead on the pavement, his fingers going lax in his pockets. It had only just occurred to him what he'd done – that he had sat quietly on a park bench, fully aware of the man's intentions, and done nothing. He had spent his walk home ruminating on the lax morals of the man with the stick, but not once had it occurred to him to try to stop him. If the little kitten hadn't managed to slip away, Wilson would have just sat there and watched the man kill it. Bludgeon it to death. On a playground. He had never felt so ashamed of himself.

About a month later, Wilson happened past the same playground. It was near midnight this time, and he couldn't sleep. He heard the creak of the swing set before he saw it, and without really thinking, he wandered around the path and into a soft pool of light near the edge of the play area. It was dark enough that he didn't see the little black-grey bundle of spindly legs and fur until it threw itself at the swing seat and arced up into the halo of light cast by one of the flood lights.

Wilson stared, feeling the muscles of his face grow lax with some mixture of emotions that defied definition. It was obviously the same little cat, grown a bit longer but a lot thinner, swinging back and forth like the little boy had taught him, legs held straight and stiff as pokers, and claws extended as if this were an ordeal rather than a bit of fun. The kitten swung back and forth until the swing ran out of momentum, then pinwheeled its legs, tail swishing in something like glee, before slipping off, trotting to a calculated distance, and doing it all over again.

Wilson had stepped closer, into the light, before it really occurred to him what he meant to do. A heavy, hot sensation had taken root in his sinuses, but he ignored it in favor of watching the little kitten play on the swing like a human boy all by himself in the middle of the night. It was so obviously starved that Wilson could see the sharp jut of bones beneath its skin, and yet it wasn't out looking for food. It was here, playing like any human child might have done. Wilson sat down on the wood chips, legs crossed, and reached into his pocket for one of the granola bars he carried around with him out of a doctor's habit of long shifts filled with snacks on the go. The little cat didn't notice him until it slithered off of the swing seat and turned around to find its starting spot again.

All of its little limbs went rigid, but it didn't run. It should have; any sane animal would have learned that from the man with the stick. This little thing, though – male, Wilson noticed – simply stood there quivering, nose in the air in search of Wilson's scent. Something about Wilson enticed it forward, something more than the food he held out, because the kitten wouldn't touch it. He crept up to Wilson and sniffed at his face instead, eyes unfocused and narrowed to slits. It nearly brought tears to Wilson's eyes, how innocent this little thing was, how trusting. He reached out but the kitten flinched back and gave a piteous hiss, fur standing up all over the visible knobs of his spine. He breathed hard enough to shift the thin layer of skin stretched all but translucent over the ridged lines of his ribs.

Wilson cooed at the little cat and kept offering the granola bar, but it backed up further before it let out a mournful, accusing wail and shot off into the dark. Maybe the little cat remembered him – maybe he remembered how Wilson had sat on a bench to watch a man try to beat him to death. Wilson let his arm drop, the granola with it, and swiped a hand over his face, surprised when it came away wet. He hadn't realized he had been crying.

For two weeks, Wilson haunted the playground after dark, hoping the little cat would come back, but it never did. And then Wilson came home one day and noticed a furry little face peeking out at him from the alley next to his apartment building. He had been stalking Wilson, then, and something must have tipped the scales in Wilson's favor. He held the door open and the cat darted inside, clearly petrified, and yet there he was, tail bristled out like a bottle brush. He followed Wilson up the stairs on silent paws, and only ventured into the apartment after Wilson wandered away from the open door. Though he wouldn't consent to being touched, he slunk around in Wilson's wake the whole evening, peeking around doorways and out from behind furniture, steeling bits of crusted chicken and broccoli from Wilson's plate while refusing to go near the bowl of identical fare that Wilson had set out in a bowl for him. He hid under the bed while Wilson sat up reading, and sometime late in the night, Wilson woke at the slight jostling that signaled the little cat's foray up onto the spare pillow beside Wilson's head.

By the next morning, the little cat had wrapped itself around Wilson's arm and head, and Wilson discovered that hybrid cats got fleas the same as regular cats. So did people, apparently. It was worth it for the way the little guy purred and slept right on through Wilson's petting him.

The next time Wilson renewed his lease, he put a check next to the line for pets, and another next to the one for additional tenants, then wrote Gregory House Cat on both. House narrowed his eyes at the chuckling as if he knew that Wilson had just made fun of him somehow. Wilson merely smiled back.


End file.
